African art is often interpreted in Western analytical frameworks as expressions of timeless myths and rituals, interrupted only by the colonial encounter. African Art and the Shape of Time complicates such conventional views by exploring material forms of diverse concepts of temporality, history, and memory. Join UMMA Docents as they discuss the thirty works from UMMA, other museums, and private collections.

UMMA's award-winning docents will guide visitors to experience art through active looking at selected highlights of the collections. These general tours provide a good introduction to the collection and to strategies for looking at art through lively and engaging conversation.

African art is often interpreted in Western analytical frameworks as expressions of timeless myths and rituals, interrupted only by the colonial encounter. African Art and the Shape of Time complicates such conventional views by exploring material forms of diverse concepts of temporality, history, and memory. Join UMMA Docents as they discuss the thirty works from UMMA, other museums, and private collections.

Carrie Fountain’s poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Crazyhorse, AGNI, and Southwestern American Literature, among others. Her debut collection, Burn Lake, was a winner of a 2009 National Poetry Series Award and was published by Penguin in 2010. She lives in Austin, TX and teaches at St. Edward’s University.

The author will be available to sign books after the reading. As always, books will be available for purchase on site.

UMMA is pleased to be the site for the Department of English Program in Creative Writing Zell Visiting Writers Series, which brings outstanding writers each semester. The Series is made possible through a generous gift from UM alumna Helen Zell (’64). For more information, please see http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/mfaeve.asp

Ann Arbor, MI 48104Events in the Penny Stamps series are always free of charge and open to the public.

PES is the creator of some of the most popular, memorable and iconic short films of the last decade. He has been featured in a wide variety of publications and venues, including The New York Times, the front pages of YouTube in 22 countries, and the Guggenheim Museum. His short, Western Spaghetti, was named #2 Viral Video of the Year by TIME Magazine and his most recent film, Fresh Guacamole, received 5MM views on YouTube in the first month. Perhaps Director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Green Hornet) said it best: "Clicking on a PES film is to open a safe and suddenly see a million ideas glittering and exploding." PES is currently in development on a feature film of the Garbage Pail Kids for former Disney CEO Michael Eisner's Tornante Company.

With support from UM Screen Arts & Cultures, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Chelsea River Gallery.

Established with the generous support of alumna Penny W. Stamps, the Speaker Series brings respected emerging and established artists/designers from a broad spectrum of media to the School to conduct a public lecture and engage with students, faculty, and the larger University and Ann Arbor communities. Additional support is provided by our media sponsor, Michigan Radio.

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends—a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.

UMMA's award-winning docents will guide visitors to experience art through active looking at selected highlights of the collections. These general tours provide a good introduction to the collection and to strategies for looking at art through lively and engaging conversation.

Blurring the boundaries between media, technologies, and cultural histories, the Seoul-based art collaborative YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES has gained international acclaim for their "net art" productions. Docents will introduce YHCHI’s corpus of digital text with synchronized music focusing on this new piece, commissioned by UMMA, which will be added to the artists' website, yhchang.com.

Jazz is undergoing changes of monumental magnitude and importance. Icons Among Us: Jazz in the Present Tense is a documentary film that captures the metamorphosis of jazz by showcasing the words, music, and spirit of the artists that are paving the way for an unprecedented musical revolution. Through interviews and live performance footage, we explore the thoughts and lives of the musicians spearheading today’s jazz front lines. Directed by Michael Rivoira, Lars Larson, and Peter J. Vogt, Icons Among Us examines the jazz music scene today by focusing the spotlight on many current jazz icons including Terence Blanchard, Ravi Coltrane, Robert Glasper, Nicholas Payton, Brian Blade and the Fellowship Band, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Donald Harrison Jr., Anat Cohen, Esperanza Spalding, and Medeski Martin and Wood. The film also features the legendary predecessors and influences of today’s contemporary jazz stars, including Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Wynton Marsalis.

This program is part of the UMS on Film series designed to expand understanding of the artists and cultures represented on the UMS season and reveal something of the emotions and ideas behind the creative process. For more information, please visit http://www.ums.org.

Like Clark Kent, jazz percussionist Pete Siers is soft-spoken and unassuming—but put him behind a drum set and a hard-swinging, intensely physical, dynamically sensitive drummer emerges. Pete has an international reputation for his “restless curiosity, attention to detail, and mastery of many different styles,” according to Mike Stratton, host of the FM 89.7 radio show, “The Vinyl Side of Midnight.” Siers has played with jazz luminaries such as Russell Malone, Mulgrew Miller, Marian McPartland, Lee Konitz, Benny Golson, James Moody, Kenny Werner, David “Fathead” Newman, Eddie Daniels, Frank Morgan, Scott Hamilton, Bob Wilber, and Barry Harris. In addition to his expansive performance career, Siers has played on over fifty recordings, including Russell Malone’s Black Butterfly on Columbia Records. He recently played Carnegie Hall, has toured Europe several times, and is a long-time favorite at many jazz parties and festivals across the U.S. Pete continues to perform orchestral pops shows such as trumpeter Marcus Belgrave’s Louis Armstrong Tribute and Dave Bennett’s Salute to Benny Goodman. In addition to his performance and recording career, Pete has taught percussion and jazz drumming for over twenty-five years. He teaches privately as well as having taught at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor School for Performing Arts, Emory University, Purdue University and Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. He was also an artist-in-residence at Interlochen School of the Arts. For this evening’s performance, Pete will be joined by Duncan MacMillan, playing the Hammond B3 organ, and by Ralph Tope on guitar.

If you can’t get enough of jazz, UMS will screen the movie Icons Among Us: Jazz in the Present Tense before this concert at 6 pm in the UMMA Auditorium.

This monthly series, curated by UM Associate Professor Adam Unsworth, presents outstanding local artists in an intimate setting and is made possible by the Doris Sloan Memorial Fund.

Robin Hemley is the author of ten books of nonfiction and fiction and the winner of many awards including a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship, The Nelson Algren Award for Fiction from the Chicago Tribune, the Story Magazine Humor Prize, an Independent Press Book Award, two Pushcart Prizes and many others. His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry has been published in the U.S., Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Australia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and elsewhere and he frequently teaches creative writing workshops around the world. He has been widely anthologized and has published his work in such places as The New York Times, The Believer, The Huffington Post, Orion, The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, New York Magazine, and many of the finest literary magazines in the U.S. The BBC is currently developing a feature film based on his book Invented Eden that tells the story of a purported anthropological hoax in the Philippines. His third collection of short stories, Reply All, is forthcoming in 2012 from Indiana University Press (Break Away Books) and The University of Georgia Press recently published his book A Field Guide for Immersion Writing: Memoir, Journalism, and Travel. He is a Senior Editor of The Iowa Review as well as the editor of a popular online journal, Defunct (Defunctmag.com), which features short essays on everything that’s had its day. He currently directs the Nonfiction Writing Program at The University of Iowa and is the founder and organizer of NonfictioNow, a biennial conference that will convene in November 2012 in Melbourne, Australia.

The author will be available to sign books after the reading. As always, books will be available for purchase on site.

UMMA is pleased to be the site for the Department of English Program in Creative Writing Zell Visiting Writers Series, which brings outstanding writers each semester. The Series is made possible through a generous gift from UM alumna Helen Zell (’64). For more information, please see http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/mfaeve.asp.

Ann Arbor, MI 48104Events in the Penny Stamps series are always free of charge and open to the public.

Sally Mann is one of America's most influential photographers. Reynolds Price, of Time observes “Few photographers of any time or place have matched…the clearly communicated eloquence she derives from her subjects, human and otherwise.” Born in Virginia, Mann has made the American South her subject in portraits, architectural photographs, landscapes and still lives. She is perhaps best known for her intimate, and sometimes controversial, portraits of her family, and for her evocative landscapes. Mann has received numerous awards, including NEA, NEH, and Guggenheim Foundation grants. Her books include What Remains (2003), Deep South (2005), and At Twelve (1988), Immediate Family (1992), Still Time (1994), Proud Flesh (2009), and The Flesh and the Spirit (2010). A feature film about her work, What Remains, debuted to critical acclaim in 2006.

With support from the Institute for Humanities, University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), Institute for Research on Women and Gender.

Established with the generous support of alumna Penny W. Stamps, the Speaker Series brings respected emerging and established artists/designers from a broad spectrum of media to the School to conduct a public lecture and engage with students, faculty, and the larger University and Ann Arbor communities. Additional support is provided by our media sponsor, Michigan Radio.

Designed specifically for the lunch hour, UMMA staff will offer 30 minutes of conversation about art in the UMMA galleries around fresh and entertaining themes such as inspiration, love, heroes, and more. Meet at the Information Desk.

Children ages four to seven are invited to hear a story in the galleries. Student docents and UMMA staff will bring art to life as they read stories related to the art on display and invite responses from our youngest patrons. Each story is followed by a short art activity. Parents must accompany children. Siblings are welcome to join the group. Meet at the Information Desk.

Guided by an Ann Arbor Art Center Instructor, families will learn how to talk about what they see and how to create art themselves. In each workshop, parents and children will explore a different artist, artifact, or art movement from the permanent collections. All materials included. Price includes two family members and supplies for one shared project. No children under five; all children must be accompanied by an adult.

UMMA's award-winning docents will guide visitors to experience art through active looking at selected highlights of the collections. These general tours provide a good introduction to the collection and to strategies for looking at art through lively and engaging conversation.

Benjamin West's iconic painting The Death of General Wolfe (1776) depicts the death of the British commander at the 1759 Battle of Quebec during what in this country is known as the French and Indian War. West’s painting of a contemporary event in the conventions of an academic history painting became one of the most celebrated in Britain. Docents will illuminate this pivotal moment in art history.

Benjamin West’s 1770 canvas The Death of General Wolfe was one of the most celebrated paintings in eighteenth-century England. After initially expressing reservations about West’s depiction of the death of Major General James Wolfe in the 1759 defeat of the French at Québec, Sir Joshua Reynolds, President of the Royal Academy, stated that “I foresee that this picture will not only become one of the most popular, but occasion a revolution in art.” This talk by curator Carole McNamara will look at how West’s painting figured in the tradition of eighteenth-century military commemorations, including other depictions of Wolfe, and examine why it is that West’s version became the iconic portrayal of this important military victory.

Generous support for this exhibition is provided by the Joseph F. McCrindle Foundation, the University of Michigan Health System, the University of Michigan Office of the Provost and Office of the Vice President for Research, the Richard and Rosann Noel Endowment Fund, and THE MOSAIC FOUNDATION (of R. & P. Heydon).

Jennifer Karady is a photographer of large-scale staged portraiture who works with real people to dramatize their stories. Her critically acclaimed series, Soldiers' Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan has been exhibited at SF Camerawork in San Francisco, the Myhren Gallery at the University of Denver, CEPA Gallery in Buffalo and continues to travel the country. The project was featured in The New York Times, on National Public Radio and reviewed in Frieze. Other solo exhibitions include White Columns, Momenta Art and The Print Center in Philadelphia. Her work is in the permanent collections of SF MOMA and The Albright Knox Gallery.

Paul Rieckhoff is a writer, social entrepreneur, advocate, activist and veteran of the United States Army and the Iraq War. He is the Founder and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) - the leading nonprofit organization for new veterans in the country.

With support from the UM Student Veterans Assistance Program, Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Established with the generous support of alumna Penny W. Stamps, the Speaker Series brings respected emerging and established artists/designers from a broad spectrum of media to the School to conduct a public lecture and engage with students, faculty, and the larger University and Ann Arbor communities. Additional support is provided by our media sponsor, Michigan Radio.

Thursday, September 27, 7:30–9 p.m.Helmut Stern AuditoriumThe lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, please call 734.647.0774.

Dr. Mariana Chilton, a nationally recognized leader addressing child hunger in America is the Director of the Center for Hunger-Free Communities and Co-Principal Investigator of Children’s HealthWatch. Dr. Chilton founded the award-winning witnesses to hunger to increase women’s participation in the national dialogue on hunger and poverty. Witnesses to Hunger was recognized as a White House Champion Non-profit. She is also Associate Professor of Public Health, Drexel University in Philadelphia.

Dr. Chilton has testified before the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives on the importance of child nutrition programs and other anti-poverty policies. She has served as an advisor to Sesame Street and to the Institute of Medicine. Her awards include the Unsung Hero Award for Improving the Lives of Women and Girls from Women’s Way and the Young Professional Award in Maternal and Child Health from the American Public Health Association. Her work has been featured in the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, public radio, CBS National News, and MSNBC. Her work also was featured in a 10-part front page Philadelphia Inquirer Series, Portrait of Hunger. Dr. Chilton received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from the University of Oklahoma, and Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University.

The Vivian R. Shaw lecture endowed by U-M alum Ellen Agress in memory of her mother, is sponsored annually by the Women’s Studies Department and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
The lecture is cosponsored by the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

This drop-in gallery class offers an opportunity to be more than an observer at the Museum. With the guidance of the instructor, learn to observe the works in the UMMA collections; experiment with proportion, perspective, line quality, value, composition, and personal style. No experience necessary; all are welcome!

One MFA student of fiction and one of poetry, each introduced by a peer, will read their work. The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends—a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.

UMMA's award-winning docents will guide visitors to experience art through active looking at selected highlights of the collections. These general tours provide a good introduction to the collection and to strategies for looking at art through lively and engaging conversation.

African art is often interpreted in Western analytical frameworks as expressions of timeless myths and rituals, interrupted only by the colonial encounter. African Art and the Shape of Time complicates such conventional views by exploring material forms of diverse concepts of temporality, history, and memory. Join UMMA Docents as they discuss the thirty works from UMMA, other museums, and private collections.